


so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

by gardevoire



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s10e04 Knock Knock, Gen, M/M, The Master in the Vault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardevoire/pseuds/gardevoire
Summary: The Doctor, the Master, and seventy years of silence (or something).Here they sit, knee to knee, the final remnants of a once-almighty civilisation, like echoes, or afterimages. One day they too will fade, and be forgotten. The universe will outgrow them, and it will outlive them, and Ashildr will sit in the ashes of Gallifrey as reality itself flickers out of existence.How poetic/sad/beautiful.





	so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaand it's been Jossed!
> 
> title from _The Great Gatsby_

The Doctor doesn’t know what it is. This feeling, this inevitable pull he feels, tugging at his hearts, night after night. Like a moth to a flame, each night, when the world sleeps, he finds himself, again and again, sitting in the same position, cross-legged on the cold concrete floor.

The first few times, he stays stubbornly silent. For what reason, he cannot precisely say. Perhaps it is pride. Perhaps guilt. Shame, too, may be mixed in with the multitude of emotions that he cannot bring himself to name.

But the Doctor is nothing if not a talker, and, within a few months, he breaks. Just little comments at first, tidbits about his day, or little comments about his brightest students. Never enough to give anything away, but little things, like daily updates one might give to their spouse.

If only it were so simple.

* * *

“…And after all that, she still wouldn’t let me borrow the sceptre!” He chuckles, tilts his head back to rest against the reinforced steel door. 

On the other side, there is nothing. The Doctor can _feel_ him, a shadowy consciousness flickering in and out, brushing only momentarily, tantalisingly, against his own. The Master cannot speak, but that is not to say that he cannot communicate, if he so chooses. But, as frequently as he loses their physical battles—those tangible, corporeal wars they’ve fought time and time again—the Master has never failed to beat him at the oldest game, their eternal battle of wills

_“…How about that? I win.”_

And, each time, against his better judgment and with the fate of the universe in the balance, the Doctor has never been able to resist being down back into the game.

_“egomaniac needy-game player?…”_

_Pathetic,_ he thinks, and closes his eyes. 

* * *

 

The Doctor is quite certain that the Master is toying with him. He _knows_ he must be getting bored in there, with no one to keep him company, and next to nothing to do. 

But the Master’s willpower has always been astounding. To have suffered so many crushing defeats over the years, and still remain so resilient, so determined to grasp at victory, no matter the cost.

So the Doctor is well aware that the Master is actively _choosing_ not to speak (or so to speak) with him. The same way in which he’d _chosen_ not to regenerate, so many years ago.

But it doesn’t prevent him from trying to elicit a reaction. He’s stooped to new lows this time, though, and they both know it.

* * *

“Do you remember the fun we used to have, at the Academy?” He’s facing the vault for once, tracing his fingers over the detailed Gallifreyan lettering. _DANGER,_ it reads. _MONSTER,_ in a way only the Time Lords knew how to express. An abomination of time itself. A universe-ending phenomenon. The heir to Ragnarök, or something along those lines.

He thinks the Master would be somewhat flattered, if he knew.

“Never listening to a word they said,” he adds. “All those laws about time travel, non-interference, remember those?”

He laughs, a sound that echoes hollowly in the empty room. “To think we’d go on to break every single one.”

_DANGER. MONSTER. FEAR. POWER. MADNESS._

And somewhere, hidden in the complex carving in the Doctor’s own handwriting:

_here come the drums_.

* * *

After this, the Doctor resorts to childish tactics.

“Koschei…” he sings softly into the door, fingers still tracing labyrinthine Gallifreyan designs. He tries to pitch his voice higher, slip into the character of his youngest self. He can still remember the way his friend had looked at him then, fondness and affection giving warmth to those dark eyes. 

_“Thete!”_ He can remember the way Koschei had sounded as well, solemn, but mischievous as well. Always changeable. Always brilliant. And always, _always…_  

Beautiful.

_You could be beautiful,_ he’d said once, whispered to the Master, full of desperate hope and a spark of something he thought he’d long since lost. _You could be beautiful._ A lie. Not what he’d meant to say.

_You could be beautiful again._

Still, the Master does not deign to respond, and the Doctor does not know how to make him.

* * *

He becomes somewhat accustomed to the nickname again, in a way he’d never thought possible. It helps him… differentiate, between a forgotten past and a volatile future.

_Koschei, my friend, my partner in crime, my childhood. Master, my enemy, my reluctant ally, my…_

He thinks of the way Missy had looked at him, on Earth and then on Skaro. Like she’d made her peace with him. Like she was giving up. Like she _had_ given up.

_Master, my best enemy._

_“And what is he to you?”_

_“Friend, at first.”_

* * *

In the past, Gallifrey burns and Gallifrey falls and Gallifrey stands, and the Doctor watches, and feels time shifting around him.  
****

In the present, he burns too. It’s a different sort of inferno: not the inexplicable hellfire that had (in his dreams and not-quite-memories) engulfed Gallifrey from the inside out, snaking its blaze throughout history itself and ripping and tearing timelines, leaving only burnt-orange traces in its wake; instead, his past burns within him, an icy cold, ever-present flame that carves a path between his hearts, that reminds him of lost hope and the many faces he can’t bring himself to forget.

(And, of course, the one he already has.)

* * *

“What do you want from me, Kosch?” He sighs, tries not to think about how completely one-sided this conversation is. “Ten months, and you haven’t said a word. I thought you used to _like_ hearing the sound of your own voice.”

He imagines that the Master is probably scoffing right about now. 

* * *

It is his birthday. His 2067th, to be precise. Not that anyone would know. Anyone on this planet, with the exception of the Doctor himself, and his very own Bertha Mason.

“You know, by Gallifreyan standards, we're really not that old,” he points out. He faces the vault every time now, because he wants to think that the Master does care, and does listen, even if he does not respond. "We could be on, what, our sixth bodies by now? Maybe even fifth, if we were careful."

They are old, though. Old enough that the Doctor could have lived Earth's history from year zero with a few decades to spare.

He and the Master share a birthday, and, like all Time Lords of their generation, are forever locked in this strange synchronous dance. Of course, the Master was dead for a good period of time prior to the War, and has now twice broken beyond relative Gallifreyan time in order to lay traps for the Doctor, but he still considers them of an age. So if it is the Doctor’s birthday, then it is also, as a consequence, the Master’s birthday.

There is a small noise from within the vault, a metallic, clinking noise. Faint, at first, but it begins to increase in volume, and the Doctor thinks the Master might be straining at the chains, attempting to manoeuvre himself closer to the vault door.

If this is the occasion on which the Master decides to do something, far be it from the Doctor to be a skeptic now. He presses his body further into the door, lays his mind bare, and, for the briefest of moments, he is not alone in his head; there is a second presence, warm and gentle, like running water.

_Happy birthday, Doctor,_ the Master whispers, and then he is gone.

The Doctor rests his forehead against the cool metal, thinks of the Master’s fingers scrabbling at his skull as he’d forced their minds together, forced the Doctor to listen to _him._

He thinks he is finally beginning to understand.

* * *

“Do you think I could come in?” 

The Doctor asks, not because the Master can stop him in any way, but because if the Master does not want him there, he will set them years back again, years (perhaps centuries) of work towards this tenuous bond ripped away in a single instant, and the Doctor will have failed. Again. Always an uphill battle between the two of them, and the Doctor is _this_ close. He will not let that go to waste.

He places his palm against the door in a gesture somewhat reminiscent of his tenth self and Rose, presses an ear against its cool surface, listens.

At first, there is nothing. Then, a light tapping. Delicate, almost musical. Not a beat of four. Fingertips, drumming against the floor. Not _the_ drumming, though. Never again.

The Doctor takes this as a tacit acquiescence, and goes to open the door. It’s a complex locking mechanism, one that only he knows the sequence to. It would take an ordinary Time Lord _decades_ to break into the vault, and there are multiple failsafes, alerts that would reach the Doctor no matter his location in time and space.

Breaking out is even harder. There are hundreds of alarms that can be triggered with the slightest misstep, and layers upon layers of security. Theoretically, the Doctor could leave the vault for _centuries,_ and the being inside would have made no significant progress. For an ordinary Time Lord, it would be completely impossible. Only a scientific and mathematical _genius—_ not in Earth terms, as well, Earth-level genius corresponds roughly to the intelligence level of a fourteen-year old Time Lord—could possibly manage it. Even the Doctor himself couldn’t manage it. Only the most brilliant mind ever produced by Gallifreyan society could even _conceive_ of ways in which to get past the mechanism. In theory, it’s perfectly safe.

So, the Doctor stays, and counts the days until the Master’s inevitable escape (and, by consequence, Missy’s inevitable rise and Danny’s inevitable death and so many assured certainties that make the Doctor’s hearts contract painfully).

He inserts the TARDIS key into the final lock, and, almost reluctantly, the doors begin to open. 

* * *

It’s Time Lord technology, so of course it’s bigger on the inside. A enormous cavern tucked neatly into a moderately-sized supply closet. And in the centre of the room, imprisoned in every way the Doctor knows how, and a few ways he’d invented specifically for the occasion, sits the most familiar figure the Doctor has ever come to know.

His head is bowed, as the Doctor enters the room, and he is gratified to see that the Master has not yet broken through his chains, or, at least, is waiting until he can execute his entire escape at once. 

His wrists are bound behind his back in a way that _must_ be uncomfortable, and as he shifts, the metal links clink gratingly against each other. Yet, as his gaze rises to meet the Doctor’s own, there is no sign of anger in his expression, nor even the tiniest trace of irritation swirling in those dark eyes. 

_La tempête sous un crane,_ the Doctor thinks, and berates himself for the obvious choice. The Master must hear him, even though the Doctor isn’t projecting, because he tilts his head back, and the Doctor thinks he might be laughing.

The Master is looking at him again, something a little more feral in his gaze, now. The Doctor feels pinned, like a butterfly to a cork board, trapped and immobilised.

He isn’t the prisoner, though. The Master is, and he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, so the Doctor joins him. 

For a few moments, they simply sit, in perfect opposition and perfect harmony. _Mirror images,_ the Doctor thinks, and wonders if he should have brought a camera.

Then, the Master inclines his head, just slightly, to the right. He moves slowly, incrementally. It’s almost... hypnotic. The Doctor feels an inexplicable urge to touch him, if only to remind himself that he’s real, that they’re both real, and still here.

His fingers brush the Master chin, skim over light stubble (has the Master been consciously slowing his hair growth?) and come to rest against his cheek. His skin is cool to touch, in a way that only a Time Lord’s is, and for once, the Doctor does not feel the need to pull away from the feverish heat of human touch.

_“Not the last of its kind. The last two.”_

The humans have had it wrong, all this time. The Doctor has never wanted his whole planet back. He never cared for Gallifrey, or for the old, outmoded regimes and strict laws, or even for the stuffy old fogeys that designated themselves the rulers and guardians of the universe itself.

But this connection, the feeling of being not-alone, and not-alone in the only way that matters, the only way that’s _ever_ mattered, _this_ is what he’s always wanted. This is what he’s wanted for so long  and to such a degree his hearts ache with the intensity of it all.

_“…obviously you knew that wasn’t real, or worse: hoped it wasn’t.”_

“Let me in,” he says quietly, and it’s neither a request nor a demand, so he knows the Master will.

* * *

After the first time, the Master is much more obliging.

The Doctor visits each night, and tells him stories about the universe: myths and legends from distant planets, tales of wonder and horror (it’s very obvious which the Master prefers), of war and peace and oppression and revolution and death and life. He speaks of a planet on which reality is indistinguishable from dreams, its occupants forever trapped between the two in a disoriented haze; he weaves a mystery about a solar system that vanishes and re-appears at random intervals in time and space; he ponders the existence of a world where no one can tell the truth.

(He does not speak of a world where everyone _must_ tell the truth. Presumably the Master knows that story anyway.)

He talks about his own adventures, sometimes. Not his current ones—because there aren’t any current ones, not anymore—but previous escapades: the accelerated time streams of Apalapuchia, the Trickster and Donna’s parallel world, taking Rose to Woman Wept, the end of the universe and the Pandorica, the Zygon invasion, Midnight’s unknown monster, memory worms and robbing the Bank of Karabraxos.

He reminds the Master that there is a world outside the vault, outside this Time Lord prison that is bigger on the inside but still far too small when the universe beckons.

In return, the Master gives him contact. Pure, unadulterated contact, tangy and bitter but still sweet around the edges. It has been so long for the Doctor, so long for them both, since the days of Gallifrey and a million million voices murmuring in the background, and even though Gallifrey is alive again, has returned and exists somewhere out there in time and space, it is still very much out of reach.

In this place, here and now, they are still the only ones.

_“Don’t you see? All we’ve got is each other.”_

And so the Doctor carefully frames the Master’s face with his hands, rests his fingertips against the key pressure points and listens _._ He doesn’t pry, doesn’t delve deeper into the dark abyss and poke his head into places he shouldn’t; he just closes his eyes and _listens._

The Master’s mind is a wild, chaotic explosion of cacophony; light and sound rush past the Doctor’s consciousness, and he catches little glimpses of half-formed thoughts and unfamiliar faces. There are memories, too: an Empire the Doctor has never come across; the Dalek squadron, preparing to _EXTERMINATE;_ his own fifth self, watching impassively as the Master is engulfed in flames; two boys, playing for hours under burnt-orange sky.

The Master’s mind is a wild, chaotic explosion of cacophony; the Doctor feels his own thoughts and memories rising, unbidden, to the surface. This is a ploy, and the Doctor takes his secrets and locks them in the deepest, darkest reaches of his mind. But he allows the Master access to other images: the TARDIS, exploding for all of eternity as the stars wink out of existence (or never existed in the first place, is there a difference?); his memories of Castrovalva; Rose, leaning against the console of the TARDIS; Susan, sad and angry and hopeful and happy and sad as he abandoned her on Earth; Theta and Koschei, working on projects upon projects, pushing the frontiers of Time Lord knowledge even as their elders tried to hold them back.

The Master’s mind is a wild, chaotic explosion of cacophony; a minefield, an intricate labyrinth that he’s built for the Doctor, and the Doctor is lost and lost and lost, but he is also found, because there is nothing in this universe more familiar to him than this, and whether the Master is a man or a woman or an android or a psychic snake, the Doctor will always recognise him – it might take a while, and he may not like what he sees, but there is a certain degree of comfort in the knowledge that, no matter how far and how fast he runs, the Master will never be far behind. No matter where or when he is, the Master will find him.

They do not speak, or, at least, the Master doesn't. He holds a strange power over the Doctor, who is forced to fill that thundering silence with quiet noise. A delicate murmur, a steady stream of chatter to keep himself sane.

He is a slave to this little dynamic of theirs, and he’s aware he’s falling, knows he’s losing sight of the endgame, of what’s important. But here is something he so desperately needs, has needed since he ended the Time War and left a piece of himself back on Gallifrey in a pocket universe or a Time Lock or somewhere beyond reality itself.

And here is the Master, offering it to him on a silver platter, no questions asked, no strings attached.

He’s wandering into dangerous territory, and the Master has always revelled in the dark.

* * *

The Doctor still wants to leave. Still wants to widen his gaze to the stars, and run from planet to planet until his hearts stop beating.

But sometimes, not too often, but every now and then, when the Master is not raging in the confines of his own existence, and the Doctor can see the spark and beauty in the very, very ordinary…

He thinks he can stay. Because it’s worth it. Because there are moments when he feels like nothing’s changed: like he’s back home, wrapped in the comforting embrace of his best friend, like they’re still just bored schoolchildren running from the Cardinals because who ever wanted to be a boring old codger, anyway?

He wants to protect them, protect _this,_ because _this_ is worth protecting, and always will be.

This here is unique, precious; here they sit, knee to knee, the final remnants of a once-almighty civilisation, like echoes, or afterimages. One day they too will fade, and be forgotten. The universe will outgrow them, and it will outlive them, and Ashildr will sit in the ashes of Gallifrey as reality itself flickers out of existence.

How poetic/sad/beautiful.

* * *

It’s an old Gallifreyan game, one taught to young Prydonians as a method of teaching telepathic control. Colours ghost between them: reds and golds and greens and yellows, conceptual representations of emotions. Basic message transmission for Time Tots.

Of course, Theta and Koschei had always been far too clever for their own good, and this is more than mere child’s play. The Doctor allows a wisp of emerald mischief to join the rest; it bats playfully at the Master’s sapphire boredom, and the two mix and merge to form a deep, rich teal – curiosity, that the Doctor nurtures and shapes, feeding it magenta-tinged love and hints of happiness yellow until it forms a glittering golden joy.

The Master destroys it with a flash of deep red anger. The Doctor, in return, morphs anger into introspection, a dark green that bleeds across the field. This is in turn changes back to frustration grey, and then midnight blue despair; scarlet rage; violet displeasure; a very incensed crimson; then angry yellow then angry green blue purple shooting through the electromagnetic spectrum until they are thrown backwards with the force of their collective white fury.

The Master spits vermilion resentment, and a carmine bolt strikes the Doctor in the chest. In a strange replay of another time—and a dark, desolate wasteland outside London—he is there to catch the Doctor as he falls, even as the landscape burns around them.

The Master does not raise a hand to stop it, and when the last embers have settled, he drops the Doctor onto the ashes. But, a bit apologetically, he allows a seedling serenity to form in the middle of the blackened field, unimpeded. Its delicate, warm aquamarine soothes the both of them, and the Doctor, aching and weary, thinks they can call it a day.

* * *

Eventually, the Master will escape.

That much is obvious, because Missy exists and Missy cannot exist unless the Master escapes this makeshift prison. It is makeshift because they must make do, because there is real danger here, both inside the vault and out, and the Doctor must not forget his duty.

But he cannot help but try to evade it, and he cannot help but hope that he can change things, somehow. Be the man that makes people better. Make his _best friend_ better, because that worked so well the last time, didn’t it?

They’re just sharing, this time, taking the luxury of sharing some of their earliest memories of each other. The Master reminds the Doctor of the vast acres of his father’s properties, and together, they wander, barefoot on red grass. The Doctor concentrates, and their younger selves appear too. They both remember such afternoons well; they’re working on theoretical designs for a whole new form of time travel. Something more portable, but not as inelegant as a Vortex Manipulator, because that’s _cheap and nasty time travel,_ and therefore not befitting for higher beings such as themselves.

They’re talking over one another, and suddenly Theta has a breakthrough and they’re off, spinning wild theories of inter-dimensional mathematics and temporal engineering, and when they finally pause to catch their breath it seems so natural for Theta to simply lean in and—

The image freezes, and the Doctor’s gaze snaps over to meet his companion’s.

This whole time, neither of them have brought up that most intimate fragment of their shared history. In fact, neither of them have mentioned it for centuries. And now the Doctor knows he’s made a mistake, because he is either being very manipulative or very cruel—or perhaps both—and there is an ice cold sinking into his bones, because the look on the Master’s face is more than furious. The world dissolves around them, until it is just the Doctor and the Master, and infinite blackness. And, in the inky dark, as time slows to an almost standstill, the Master, still incandescent with righteous rage, speaks for the first time since their birthday:

_GET. OUT._

The Doctor runs, withdraws from the Master’s mind, and runs again. The vault doors slam shut behind him, and he doesn’t know by whose hand.

He plans to return, and apologise, the very next day, but instead, he decides that Bill Potts could use a tutor.

_“It wasn’t_ me _who ran, Doctor._ That _was always_ you _.”_

* * *

He buys the Master a piano. Actually he steals one from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but it’s not like they can’t just get another and he remembers that the Master had always been such a talented player, and he thinks he might be apologising but perhaps he’s forgotten how apologies work, too. 

Bill brings a sort of warmth back into his life, gives him a purpose again. He is a mentor, a teacher in a way he hasn’t been for what feels like (and might actually be) centuries. She is vibrant and curious and wonderfully _ordinary_ in the most extraordinary way. She’s not one of his terrible _Children of Time_ , not yet, hopefully not ever. He needs to keep her safe and alive, holding on to that joy and wonder that pulls at his hearts and reminds him of so many people he’d lost, but mostly of young Susan, and lifetimes of regret.

He refuses to fail again, refuses to leave her disillusioned and disenchanted and damaged beyond repair.

But there are other things he can’t escape, other things that he has already damaged beyond repair, over and over, and the Doctor does not know how to make amends. But…

“ _I’ve made many mistakes and it’s about time I did something about that.”_

He thinks Clara might be proud of him, wherever she is.

(But maybe she’d say _“if you’ve ever let this creature live”_ and the Doctor would be at a loss to explain the profound agony that would tear through his hearts if the Master were truly gone for good.)

“You want dinner? I’ve got Mexican.” The music stops abruptly, and the Doctor can picture the Master, defiant and proud, stubborn to the end.

_Don’t be like that,_ he pleads, and sends a silver sliver of apology into the vault, hopes the Master even cares to receive it.

“Look,” he rambles on, waiting for a signal, a reaction, something to tell him that the Master is listening, something to tell him that his presence will be, if not welcome, then at least not _unwelcome._ “I know you miss it all. But I’m stuck here too, you know.” In a way. After a fashion. Of course, he has the TARDIS, but the Doctor doesn’t _stay;_ he hasn’t been moored to a specific location since… well, since his third body. Back when the Master had limited himself to world-domination. Back before he’d gone completely mad, and taken half the universe with him.

But that’s why he’s here. Why they’re _both_ here. And the Doctor cannot forget that, cannot deny the truth any longer.

“We’re both prisoners,” he continues. He remembers when his tenth self had been so _desperate_ for company, for the comforting presence of another Time Lord, that he’d been willing to chain the Master up in the TARDIS for all of eternity. 

_“You are not alone.”_

He’s certainly not alone now. 

“So what do you say? Dinner?”

The unlocking process is almost complete. Around him, he feels the first tendrils of the Master’s mind beginning to fold around his own. It feels a little bit like absolution.

**Author's Note:**

> This was conceived as a tiny coda to "Knock Knock", but I got a bit carried away by the premise. I'm not saying that it's the Master in the vault – in fact, I have absolutely no idea whom it might be. But come on – the Doctor and the Master alone (pretty much) for seventy-odd years? Think of all the possibilities!
> 
> I didn't really elaborate much on my own headcanons, because I wanted it to feel as authentic as possible to the story itself. I tried to keep information to a minimum, so it's more of an introspective sort of piece.


End file.
